jQuery Grid Plugin - jqGrid

Ok. I finally have jqGrid working with both static xml files and static json files.  Whew!

But I still have a slight nagging problem.  I am using a website's menu to control the rendering of jqGrid and its data.  I have the .trigger('reloadGrid') working just fine.  But this only comes after clicking a menu item twice.  This only needs to be done once for the application.  Once done inside the application, the menu works ok.  I am trying to get rid of the need to click a menu item once just to get the grid to operate correctly.  Here is the starting script of jqGrid (it is tied to a button with id of smallarms):

My menu buttons have something like the following tied to them:

I am trying to get rid of having to click on the Small Arms button just to initiate the grid functionality, where my users/site visitors can just click on the drop down items (like the 22cal 'button' in the above script) that displays below Small Arms when mouse is rolled over Small Arms.  I still want to be able to reload the grid with different data when the user selects a different menu item.

Tony